


Inner, Outer

by Anonymous



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Other, faintly creepy and inappropriate UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-24
Updated: 2011-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-29 23:50:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by this lovely and amazing drawing: <a href="http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/783.html?thread=2517775#cmt2517775">Inner Ear</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Inner, Outer

Douglas understood the impulse to slap awake fainted people - he felt the urge to force life back in Martin's livid face, to shake him and shout at him, anything but having to see that unnatural stillness. He checked his pulse again - he hadn't checked it since five minutes ago. A lot of things could go wrong in five minutes.

Nonsense, the rational part of Douglas' brain insisted. It was just Martin's stupid inner ear, perfectly air-worthy and utterly not life-threatening.

Until you were flying into a hurricane - as one does - and you had to spend the most terrifying hour of your life trying not to crash your substandard plane, while your substandard Captain flopped limply in his seat like a jelly bobblehead, and you couldn't spare a single second to help him.

He should have awoken ages ago. What did he think he was doing? "Martin!" Douglas shouted, annoyed.

No response came, not even a twitch or a groan. "Martin!" Douglas repeated. His fingers kept twitching nervously towards Martin's wrist. In the end he abandoned the pretence of rationality and just kept his hand wrapped around it. His thumb brushed again and again over the pulse point.

There was a part of Douglas' brain that couldn't help pointing out all the ways in which everything about Martin screamed "vulnerable, victim, _prey_ " - the exposed throat, the slim hands lying limply by his sides, fingers curled upwards, the slightly parted lips, dry and pale, almost the shade of his face.

The loosened tie and open collar - Douglas' work after setting Martin on the floor, the idea being to remove any constrictions to a normal blood flow - made Martin's neck look oddly inviting, even in the bleak and cold light of the galley.

That part of Douglas wanted to sink his teeth into the pale skin, to suck and bite his mark on it, to grip Martin's wrists with bruising force and drag Martin to consciousness through the twin forces of lust and pain; wake him up only so he could find himself claimed.

Douglas' fingers caressed the skin on Martin's throat - a fleeting touch to the well-defined Adam's apple, a minuscule bump over a fresh shaving scar. It was hardly inappropriate, wasn't it? He could have been checking his pulse - it was better defined on the side of his neck, and Douglas shivered when his fingers pressed gently on the pulsating vein.

"Martin," he whispered, almost begging him to wake up.

Maybe he _should_ try the Sleeping Beauty trick. Martin was breathing, so he clearly didn't need CPR, but there was some seed of truth in any legend.

What was wrong with his mind? Douglas wondered. Martin was not beautiful. _He_ was not supposed to think of Martin as beautiful, and if he ever agreed to go through such a 180 degrees spin, he wasn't supposed to find him beautiful like this - broken, powerless. Lying motionless at his feet, at Douglas' mercy to make him or break him-

"Martin," he murmured, calm and still like a cat before pouncing.

"Mnngh," Martin said, and suddenly the atmosphere in the little galley changed.

"Oh hello, the swooning damsel joins us at last."

"Wha- Why am I- What?"

"Oh, nothing. Did you have a good rest?"

"What?" Confusion, irritation, and self-consciousness, the typical Martin look, began to replace the eerie calm of earlier, as Martin took stock of his surroundings and his relative position within them. "Oh no, tell me I didn't-"

"Oh yes, you did. You were inconsiderate enough to faint during a bit of unexpected turbulence over the ocean."

"I don't faint, I-I-I black out."

"You _fainted,_ " Douglas pressed on, "while we were hurtling along against hurricane-strength wind over the Atlantic, with not enough fuel to divert."

"Oh," Martin said in a very small voice.

"I didn't mind flying the plane alone, of course, I'm perfectly qualified to do that, but I do wish you could have witnessed the rather astonishing display of flying skill from yours truly, if I do say so myself."

After that, it was more or less life as usual, with jokes and banter and games and bad food.

Douglas knew, however, that once he'd seen it, he'd never stop thinking about that other Martin he glimpsed just beneath the skin of Captain Crieff. He didn't know if could stop himself from trying to resurface him.


End file.
